The major labels want to see Irish ISPs adopt a "three strikes" policy toward …

Share this story

The major music labels are committed to the idea of graduated response, but they aren't wedded to any particular method of implementation. In France, disconnecting repeated online copyright infringers has been pushed by legislation. In the US, the RIAA wants ISPs to sign up to a voluntary scheme. But in Ireland, the "sue-them-into-doing-what-we-want" school of thought has triumphed.

The Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) has filed lawsuits against two of the country's largest ISPs, seeking to force compliance with an Internet disconnection scheme. It worked well enough earlier this year, when Ireland's largest ISP Eircom settled a similar case with the industry and agreed to implement a graduated response program. After a third accusation of online copyright infringement, Eircom will disconnect a user's Internet connection.

But neither BT Ireland nor UPC Ireland sound inclined to settle. A UPC spokesperson told the Irish Times that "there is no basis under Irish law requiring ISPs to control, access or block the internet content its users download" and that the ISP would fight the case in court.

The Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland (ISPAI) agrees. In a March statement, the group said, "Irish copyright law provides an avenue for the pursuit of people breaching copyright through the courts... Privacy of user communications is protected in European and Irish legislation. ISPs can not be expected to ignore these merely because it does not suit another private party."

If other ISPs refuse to adopt the graduated response plan, Eircom will be at a competitive disadvantage, so it has been pushing the recording industry to go after the other ISPs. Eircom has not begun disconnecting users, saying that the details are still being worked out, but we suspect that the company would prefer to delay disconnections until a few of the country's other major ISPs are ready to do the same thing.

But with the European Parliament already on record opposing Internet disconnections and France's Constitutional Council taking a dim view of disconnections that happen without judicial oversight, Irish ISPs will be wary. Sure, signing on to the record industry's plan might make one lawsuit disappear, but it invites a host of other legal challenges from subscribers and consumer groups.